Shenmue 3 returns for more crowdfunding

A new Shenmue 3 'Slacker Backer' crowdfunding campaign has begun, offering everyone who missed the original Kickstarter another chance to give money to the project and "be a part of the Shenmue legacy."

The Shenmue 3 Kickstarter hit its $2 million campaign goal less than 12 hours after it was announced at Sony's E3 2015 press conference, and went on to pull in more than $6.3 million in total, making it the most successful video game Kickstarter of all time. Despite more than tripling the campaign's goal, however, that amount was still well short of the $10 million that Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki said would be required to "truly have the features of an open world."

Ys.net didn't say whether that was a factor in its decision to launch the new campaign, noting only that funds raised will go toward a range of stretch goals including "expanded ragdoll reaction" at $6.5 million and various sorts of expansions to the Choubu Area and Bailu Village. The Slacker Backer effort will offer many of the same backer rewards as the Kickstarter campaign, although oddly, according to the press release (via Polygon), the designs of the physical editions offered through this new campaign will be different from the Kickstarter versions, a potentially annoying and/or expensive situation for collectors.

Also very curious is that the rewards in this campaign do not include the PC version of the game: The $100 tier includes a digital copy of the trial version on PC, but otherwise, all backer rewards are PS4 only. The site says the developers are "discussing the PC version with the related parties," but otherwise offers no explanation for the absence of the PC edition. I've emailed the studio to find out more about what's going on, and will update when I can.

Andy covers the day-to-day happenings in the big, wide world of PC gaming—the stuff we call "news." In his off hours, he wishes he had time to play the 80-hour RPGs and immersive sims he used to love so much.